Photo Record

Catalog Number

WF 1683

Caption

Capture of rum runner "Alice"

Description

This image is of the rum runner ALICE at an Anacortes dock during Prohibition. Members of Anacortes Coast Guard, Section Base 12, detachment are shown unloading the boat. An uncited article from the Ferd Brady file at the University of Washington reports that on 6-3-1926, Ferd Brady advertised he had "Flashlight pictures" of the capture of the rum runner ALICE on display in his photo studio. The article probably came from the ANACORTES CITIZEN. The 6-3-1926 ANACORTES AMERICAN reported that Coast Guard Patrol Boat #2354 captured the rum runner ALICE in Upright Channel between Shaw and Lopez islands. The article stated that rum runners, "alarmed by the frequent capture of their speed boats, are using slower vessels," which apparently described the ALICE. The Coast Guard crew, commanded by Captain John L. Gunderson, discovered "88 sacks of Canadian beer and 25 sacks of assorted liquors" hidden beneath a false bottom of the boat. They arrested E. W. MIller, master, and Fred Walters, engineer, of the ALICE. The boat was brought back to Anacortes, beached, and the crew turned over to police in Ballard (Seattle). Liquor was turned over to the U. S. Customs Office in Seattle. For a history of the Coast Guard in Anacortes, see the section preceding WF 1854. For additional photographs of the Coast Guard, see WF 1684, 1854-1857, 2231, 2242, 2507-2512. See also Wallie Funk's 1976 photos of Coast Guard vessels and personnel at luncheon for the Coast Guard in Anacortes, sponsored by the Oak Harbor Navy League (see Events, government: Coast Guard, 1979). For Wallie Funk's photos of the Coast Guard Station and lighthouse on Burrows Island, see Locations; San Juan Island, other. Note that Brady signed this negative "Bower and Brady", but WF 1684 of this same incidence is just signed "Brady."